


Right Next to Each Other

by Allikizme



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - High School, Drinking, F/M, High School, High School AU, Party, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 14:40:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13615497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allikizme/pseuds/Allikizme
Summary: Dana Scully is well on her way to being valedictorian, when her biology teacher Mr. Skinner decides to pair her with that weird Mulder kid.





	Right Next to Each Other

Dana Scully, with her hair tied back and her safety goggles on, was not happy, per se, but content. She was wholly focused on the DNA strands before her, alternating between the microscope and the printout it was supposed to look like.

Her best friend sat on the other side of the table, checking her phone, utterly uninterested in the workings of the unseen world. Scully didn’t mind. She got to do all the work like this, and that was how she liked it.

When the bell rang, Scully reluctantly pulled off her goggles. Her next class was English, and while she did well enough in it, it simply didn’t stimulate her like biology did. She nodded as her friend said something about lunch and started sliding her books back into her bag.

“Dana?” Mr. Skinner called. “Can I speak with you for a moment?”

Scully picked up her bag and went to stand in front of Mr. Skinner’s desk. “What is it?”

“Dana, I can’t help but notice you and Natalie don’t seem to work all that well together,” he said.

Scully took in his round glasses and round head and decided for the first time in four years that Mr. Skinner might not be the best teacher in the school, as she had previously thought. She sensed danger like a change in the wind. “We work really well together, actually,” she said.

“I think,” Mr. Skinner said, hands folded on his desk, “ _you_ work well with her, because you do the whole thing by yourself.”

“She passes the tests on her own,” Scully said firmly. “I don’t feel as though I’m carrying her weight.”

“I’m not saying that,” he replied. “I’m saying I think you need a challenge. So I’d like you to work with Mulder—.” Scully made a noise of protest, but at Skinner’s look, she fell silent. “Just till the end of the week,” he said carefully. “If it doesn’t work, you can trade back, all right?”

Scully controlled her disappointment and did not let it show on her face. “All right.”

* * *

 

Fox Mulder, with his goggles around his neck and his shirt untucked, was not unhappy, per se, but bored. He had completed his lab assignment yesterday and now had nothing to do for the next hour of class. He was looking around the room, wondering what concoction of chemicals would most alleviate his boredom, when he heard the scraping of a stool and looked up to see none other than Dana Scully sitting across from him.

Mulder stared at her. She was doing everything not to look at him. “Um,” he said, “I think you’re at the wrong table.”

“Nope,” she said, keeping her eyes on her folder. “Skinner reassigned me. Now we’re partners.”

Mulder blinked a few times and leaned over to look at their teacher, who glanced up at him and said nothing. Mulder pulled back and did not say anything, just watched her.

Besides the fact that most of the school tended to refer to her by her last name, an honor reserved for her, himself, and that whose last name was Chiyoni, Mulder knew almost nothing about Dana Scully. She was pretty, ish. Kinda pale. Definitely short. Even sitting down Mulder could tell he had nearly a foot on her. She didn’t dress the best. When she took notes she put on this pair of godawful glasses. Hell, she was putting them on right now.

And her grades were supposedly legendary. Well, finally something he could like about the girl.

“How far are you in the DNA lab?” Scully asked, still looking at her notebook.

“I finished it,” he said. He cracked a sunflower seed in his mouth and was pleased when she looked up.

“What do you mean, you finished it?” she said, tersely.

“I mean I got it done yesterday. What, you didn’t?”

Scully gave him a well-rehearsed look of annoyance, scrutiny, and downright rage. “It’s not a race, Mulder.” He could hear the click of her teeth setting.

“Then I guess you’d better keep going,” he said. He put another sunflower seed in his mouth.

“You can’t eat in a lab area,” she snapped. “You could contaminate the area, or it could contaminate your food.”

“And?”

“And then you could die, Mulder.”

“This is a high school lab, there’s nothing poisonous in here.”

Scully pointed all around the room and their table, and without breaking a sweat she rattled off every chemical in the room and their potential side effects if Mulder happened to ingest them, from hydrochloric acid to acetic anhydride and Mulder found himself more than a little turned on.

“Okay,” he interrupted, mostly because his reaction was scaring him. “I believe you. I won’t eat.”

Scully looked peeved at being interrupted, but she went back to her notes without another word.

Ten minutes later she put down her pencil, took off her glasses, and waited.

Mulder looked at her. “You’re done?”

“Yes.”

“If it only took you ten minutes why didn’t you finish yesterday?”

“Because I like to look for more things than just what’s on the assignment.”

Mulder was intrigued, but he would never admit it. “Like what?”

Scully sighed. “Like stuff I read about in the science journals over there.” She pointed to a shelf near Skinner’s desk that was full of magazines. “When we did the genetics lab I checked myself and Natalie for genetic abnormalities.”

“Could you actually see them?”

“Not really,” she said. “We’d need a more powerful microscope. But it was fun to try.”

Mulder nodded. “Why did Skinner put us together?”

“He said I needed a challenge.”

“Am I a challenge?”

“So far.”

Mulder grinned. Maybe this was going to work out after all. “When do you want to write that report?”

Scully paused, thinking. “Are you free after school?”

“I have basketball practice till five.”

“Do you really?”

“Just because I’m terrible doesn’t mean I’m not part of the team.”

Scully smiled, and Mulder felt his heart lift, just a little. Whoa. This girl had a little too much power. “I have violin at four anyways,” she said. “Five thirty?”

“Can we get pizza?”

“With pineapple?”

“On half.”

“Deal.”

* * *

 

Spending an evening with Fox Mulder was actually… rather pleasant. He was a sarcastic asshole, to be sure, but he was funny and intelligent and maybe a little easier on the eyes than Scully had initially thought. They wrote their report in harmony, in spite of their arguments, and when they were done Scully felt it was the best damn report she’d written all year.

Around seven, her mother came home. Scully introduced Mulder and her mother offered to make them popcorn, but they were almost done and Mulder had to get home—something about watching the game with his dad.

After he left, Scully closed the front door and turned to see her mother standing in the doorway behind her. “He seems nice,” she said.

* * *

 

Nearly three weeks into this new partnership and Mulder found himself thinking about Scully an awful lot. When he went out shopping with his mother, he constantly saw things that reminded him of her. He wondered, watching the basketball game with his father, if Scully knew anything about the sport.

But the million dollar question was whether Scully believed in aliens.

“Scully,” Mulder said during Friday’s class, while they were doing a Punnett squares worksheet, “tonight the observatory is having a presentation about the possibilities of extraterrestrial life.”

“Uh huh.”

“Do you wanna go?”

Scully looked up, glasses shining with fluorescent light. “How much are the tickets?”

“Tickets are free.” No, they weren’t, but Mulder had already bought her one and it was only like, six bucks, so what? “If nothing else we can look through the telescope. I think we should be able to see Saturn.”

Scully puckered her lips. Her thinking face. “I suppose,” she said. “Natalie canceled on me tonight anyway.”

Well, that didn’t sound very enthusiastic. But she was coming. Mulder hoped for a rousing discussion about aliens after the show.

* * *

 

Scully was almost certain this wasn’t a date. But now that they were standing in line to get into the observatory and she had glanced the six dollar admission sign, she was starting to have her doubts. But Mulder was standing there, at a friendly distance, and going on about when this observatory was built, and why, and what amazing discovery about the Milky Way was made here.

“Did you know, Scully, that it was the scientists at this observatory that found the first planet outside our solar system that could possibly sustain life?”

Well, this really didn’t seem like flirting. Scully relaxed and said, “Really? Did they find life on it too?”

Mulder looked down at her, with the most intense glint in his eyes. “That’s what we all want to find out.”

* * *

 

Looking through the giant telescope was, in simplest terms, pretty fucking cool. Scully knew the stars from her dad’s old sea maps that they would pour over together, and she could pick out planets with her naked eye. But seeing Saturn like this, this close, took her breath away. She had never known that the rings were that colorful, that grand. “Mulder this is incredible,” she said, and she pulled away to let him look.

“Saturn is one of the gas giants,” he said as he peered through the lens. “Did you know all four of the gas giants have rings?”

Scully did not know what gas giant meant. But she kept that to herself and resolved to look it up when she got home.

Mulder started reciting facts about Saturn like a textbook, which impressed Scully more than a little, and they moved away from the telescope to take their seats in the auditorium.

Never before had Scully really cared about what was above her, in space. She had always been so fascinated by the world beneath her microscope, enthralled by the fact that under her skin was an entirely different kind of life. But where she had spent her whole life looking down, she realized Mulder had spent his looking up. His world was bigger, scarier, and farther away. She felt like they were standing in the middle of a long hallway, right next to each other, facing opposite directions.

The show was incredible, and mind-blowing. She could see why Mulder liked this stuff, and wasn’t so blind as to miss the excited smile that graced his angular face as they watched. She might’ve spent a little too much time watching him, actually. But that was okay, because this wasn’t a Date.

They spent a little time afterwards wandering the halls, looking at space photos with the rest of the spectators. “So what do you think?” Mulder asked. “Do aliens exist?”

Scully considered her answer. “I suppose it makes sense that if life did happen to come about here, it must have also come about somewhere else in the universe. Space is too big for just us.”

“I sense a really big but coming.”

Scully smiled. “But,” she went on, “I would like some proof.”

“Aw, come on, Scully, isn’t enough to just believe?”

“Of course it is, Mulder, but seeing is believing.”

Mulder snorted. “Says the Catholic.” She shoved against him, and he veered and almost ran into someone. He grinned, thrilled to have gotten under her skin. And Scully grinned too, because… well, she didn’t really know why.

* * *

 

Fox Mulder was seeing an awful lot of Dana Scully, in person and not. The following week they had spent their biology class discussing all sorts of things. Mulder loved to draw out her opinions on pseudoscience, like astrology and hypnotism. He asked her what her sign was. She told him that stuff was bogus and that she was a Taurus. She asked him about his favorite books and he confessed his bookshelf was almost entirely books about aliens. She read a book on the bleachers during his basketball practice. He told her he could play the piano and maybe they should do a duet sometime.

When he wasn’t with her, Mulder imagined he was. He pictured her walking by his side and explaining some science journal in her cool, crisp voice. He thought about what her reactions to everything in his house might be. He remembered her house was clean and took to tidying up more often. His parents, of course, noticed.

“Why are you suddenly so clean?” his mother asked him.

“I don’t know,” he told her. But he knew. Oh, he knew with more certainty than he ever had in his life. “I just feel cluttered.

He started checking his appearance a lot. Never before had he been aware that the sunflower seeds he loved so much also made his breath stink. He took to carrying around gum, to checking his teeth in the bathroom, to digging up the cologne he’d gotten for Christmas last year and actually wearing it.

This was really getting out of hand.

“Fox,” Samantha said one night, “you’re acting really weird.”

Mulder looked up from the latest science journal and said, “What do you mean?”

“Well, for one, you’re wearing cologne.” Samantha wrinkled her nose. “It’s not very good cologne, either.” ‘

“Well how would you know.”

Samantha rolled her eyes and dropped down on his bed. She was so much younger than him, but so much more put-together. She had makeup all figured out and Mulder knew about a few boyfriends that he was sure his parents didn’t. “Believe me,” she said, “I know.”

Mulder blinked a few times. He sat up and rubbed his face (he still was yet to grow stubble). “Promise not to tell?” he said, quietly.

Samantha nodded. Mulder felt himself turning red. “I think,” he said, “I am in love.”

His sister jumped to her feet. “I win the bet!” she cried. “Mom—!”

Mulder yanked his sister back down to the bed. “What the hell, Sam, you promised not to tell!” he hissed.

Samantha fidgeted. “I know, but we had a bet going on and Fox I’m gonna get a new phone out of this one, _please—._ ”

Mulder let her go. “Good god, why do I tell you anything.”

Samantha went to leave, looked at her brother sulking on the bed, and the guilt overcame her. “All right,” she said. “I won’t tell. Yet.”

Mulder rolled his eyes. “Fine, whatever.”

Samantha sighed. “Look, Fox, you want my advice?”

“No.”

“You need to decide what’s more important to you,” his sister said. “Keeping Scully as a friend, or risking her as something more.” Then she left him alone, door slamming shut behind her.

* * *

 

“Scully, you’ve ducked out of the last two parties. You’re coming to this one.”

Scully pursed her lips. “I’ve been busy.”

“Busy with Spooky Mulder?” Natalie rolled her eyes. “Ever since you got reassigned, we’ve hardly hung out! Now, I wanna go get drunk and I wanna do it with you.”

“And forty plus other people. In a stranger’s house.”

Natalie beamed. “Now you’re getting it!”

Scully stared at her sandwich for lack of a better place to lay her eyes. “Maybe,” she said.

Her friend looked physically pained. “Pleeeease, Dana? I’ll do your makeup and remind this school just how pretty you can be. You know, before the nerd set in.”

“I’m still pretty,” Scully replied. She was used to this tactic. “I just decided I liked sleeping more than my hair.”

Natalie, on the other hand, was used to winning. “Dana Scully, I am coming over to your house at eight and by ten you will be the goddess I know you are.”

“It doesn’t take that long, Nat.”

“Fine. Eight thirty.”

* * *

 

Mulder sat in his room, idly spinning his basketball. If Scully were here, what would they be doing? Did she like video games? Maybe if she was winning, she did. He picked his phone off his pillow and checked it, again, to see if maybe she had texted him back. She hadn’t. For some reason it made him antsy.

He had sent the text twenty minutes ago. She usually replied by then.

Mulder sucked on his teeth. It didn’t mean anything. She wasn’t avoiding his request to hang out. She wouldn’t do that.

He started dribbling his basketball on the floor. It bounced funny off the rug.

A sudden pounding on the wall made him jump. “Quit slamming your stupid ball!”

“It’s my room, Sam, I can do what I want!”

He heard footsteps, and his door was thrown open. Samantha pulled her headphones out of her ears and scowled. “Look, Fox, your sulking is so pathetic I can feel it through the walls. Get up. You’re coming with me.”

Mulder looked at her and knew she meant business. “Where?”

“The party at the Krycek’s house.”

“Krycek? Oh, no, Sam, I haven’t spoken to him in years, that’s not a good idea—.”

“It’ll be so crowded it’s like you’re not even there.” She went to his closet and threw a shirt at him. “Wear this. And if you mention aliens to anyone, you’re walking home.”

* * *

 

Scully had to admit she looked pretty good. She had already told her mom she would be spending the night at Natalie’s, and they had made it out of the house without being seen. Now, as she checked her appearance in the mirror of Natalie’s car, she felt pretty good. Tight shirt, tight jeans, hair perfectly coiffed… yeah. She was looking good tonight.

“So we’ll probably end up staying here,” Natalie was saying. “Don’t really want to go home at three AM or whatever.”

Scully would have preferred to stay at Natalie’s house, but she understood. If they were caught, they were in a whole mess of trouble. Right then Scully resolved not to drink more than one or two, so she could drive them if she needed to.

* * *

 

Mulder had never been to a party before—mostly because people started going to parties around the same time they stopped inviting him out. And yet here he was, at Alex Krycek’s house, the boy who had been his best friend until the incident in history class. Oh god.

He followed his sister with his head down, half-hoping no one would recognize him. But people did. He could feel their glazed eyes on him and their shouted whispers over the music—

Isn’t that Mulder?

The spooky guy?

Mulder wished he had stayed at home.

“Holy shit, Fox!”

Mulder turned and there was Alex. Oh god. Mulder looked around for the nearest sharp object to impale himself upon. But Alex came up to him, swaying, and clapped him on the shoulder. It made Mulder flinch. “Dude! You’re here! I see Sam at these all the time but I never thought you’d come out!”

“Kicking and screaming,” Mulder said with a pained smile.

“This is fantastic, here, Fox, let me get you a drink.”

Mulder said, “Oh, I don’t—.” But then there was a cup in his hand and Mulder gazed at it. Something orange. “What is it?”

“Vodka and orange juice,” Alex said, triumphant. “Go on. Drink up.”

Mulder hesitated. Tonight was already weird. He might as well jump in feet first. He tipped the cup back, intending to drain it.

“Whoa!” Alex grabbed it and pulled it away. “Slow down, Fox, you wanna puke?”

“How come you’re talking to me?” Mulder asked. The drink was burning a hole in his gut.

Alex smiled dopily. “I don’t know man, you’re here!” He handed Mulder his drink back. “Come over here, we’re playing king’s cup.”

* * *

 

Scully and Natalie walked through the party to the backyard, where it was much quieter, and sipped on their beers while they talked. They laughed at the drunken jocks who had found a deflated beach ball and their attempts at blowing it up.

But then Scully looked up at the stars, and suddenly she wished Mulder was here with her.

“Nat,” she said, “do you believe in aliens?”

* * *

 

Mulder was having fun. A _lot_ of fun. It was like being on a slide or something. Everything was just better. He found himself laughing. He never laughed.

He looked up at the back door and happened to see a head of red hair coming in from the backyard. He yelled, “Scully! Scull-ay!!”

She looked at him, and gaped. He loped over to her, beaming. “Mulder?” she said.

“I can’t believe you’re here!” he said, and he held onto the wall for support. Then he leaned on it entirely. “You… you look nice.”

Her brow knit. “How much have you had?” she exclaimed.

Mulder thought about it. “I don’t—I don’t know. It was like two drinks. Three drinks.”

“Of?”

“Something orange.”

Scully looked over to the table he had been at earlier, and her face turned red. “Alex!” she yelled, and she stormed over to the table. Mulder followed her, saw Alex, and smiled. “Alex, what did you give him?”

Alex Krycek glanced down at Scully and up at Mulder. “Vodka, Scully, ease off.”

“Look at him!” she practically screamed.

Mulder felt like everyone was looking at him, but that didn’t really matter, because Scully was here. He saw her lean in very close to Alex and say something that made him flinch. She took Mulder by the arm and led him out of the house, away from the music and the crowd and everyone’s eyes.

“Where are we going, Scully?” he asked. God she was so pretty. He wanted to kiss her. Maybe they were going somewhere they could kiss.

“I’m taking you home,” she said. “You’re very drunk, Mulder, you need to sober up.” She pulled a water bottle out of her purse. “Sit here, drink this, and wait till I get back.” She sounded very stern. “All of it.”

Scully disappeared back inside. Mulder took his first sip and realized he was actually quite thirsty. He sucked the bottle dry and hoped Scully would be happy with him. She had looked pretty angry.

She came back and looked even angrier. “Did you drink it?” she said. He held up the empty bottle like a proud child. “Now how did you get here?”

“I drove,” he told her.

“Give me your keys.”

Mulder fished the keys out of his pocket and dropped them in her tiny open palm. “You look nice,” he said, hoping it would make her less angry.

Scully gave him a strange look.

Somehow, they ended up in Mulder’s car. He watched her struggle to move the driver’s seat forward and he smiled. She was so small. He wanted to hold her close and stroke her hair, feel her skin against his and—

And now he had a bit of a boner. He crossed his legs so she wouldn’t see.

“Can you tell me where your house is, Mulder?” she said.

Mulder pointed vaguely. He knew where it was, but he was having trouble finding the words.

Scully sighed. “All right,” she said, “we’ll go to my house.”

* * *

 

Scully felt Mulder’s eyes on her the entire ten-minute drive. “What is it?” she finally said. “What’s wrong?”

Mulder blinked languidly, his head lolling a bit. “You just look so nice,” he told her.

Scully pursed her lips. “Are you saying I don’t always look nice?”

“No, no.” He shook his head, and it seemed to dizzy him. “You look nice all the time. But you look a different kind of nice tonight.”

Scully was a little amused. “Yeah?”

“You could put a gun to my head and I’d thank you for it.”

“ _Mul_ der,” she laughed.

“I mean it, Dana,” he said, his voice low. “I’d be okay with anything so long as it was with you.”

Scully felt her cheeks growing warm. “Even finding out aliens didn’t exist?”

“Well, maybe not that.” He grinned at her and shifted in his chair. “I have to pee.”

“Yeah, you drank a lot.”

“No, like I might piss myself.”

Scully told him her house was just down this block, and she parked beside an open stretch of grass so her parents wouldn’t look out the window and see Mulder’s car in the morning.

* * *

 

Mulder was not keen on peeing in front of Scully. At all. But it was a hell of a lot better than peeing his jeans in front of Scully. So when she parked the car he asked her to stay inside while he went over to the fence. Luckily, when he finally relieved himself, his slight boner dropped as well.

With the fence a slightly different color, he stumbled back to the car as Scully was getting out. “Feel better?” she asked.

“My dignity is shattered, but yes.”

Scully smiled, and even through his drunken haze it made Mulder’s heart flutter.

* * *

 

Scully unlocked her front door, Mulder swaying behind her, and beckoned. “Do not,” she whispered, “step on the third step from the top.”

They crept through the foyer and up the stairs, and Mulder had to hold the railing lest he fall over. He tried to keep his vision straight, but things kept leaning. Oh. Oh he did not feel good.

They made it to the top and skittered to Scully’s room. Mulder was feeling clammy. He pulled off his jacket. “Scully I’m going to be sick,” he said, panting.

Scully grabbed him by the arm and led him to the bathroom that connected her and her sister’s rooms. She pulled the lid and seat up, made him kneel on the floor, and locked the door on her sister’s side. “I’m going get you water,” she whispered, stroking his head. “You’re going to be fine.”

The alcohol burned as much coming up as it had going down, and Mulder closed his eyes so he didn’t have to see it. Thank god Scully had left. He wasn’t sure he could recover from her seeing him like this.

He was flushing the toilet when Scully came back up, holding a large glass. “Are you feeling better?” she asked.

Mulder nodded, though he was leaning heavily on the toilet.

“Are you going to throw up again?”

He thought about it and shook his head.

“You should take a shower.” She set the glass on the countertop. “Drink this. All of it.”

She left again, taking her makeup wipes with her. Mulder undressed and weakly got in the shower. He peed while he showered, and he felt bad about it, but he was really in no condition to make good decisions. He washed up and Scully brought a toothbrush in for him, along with pajamas. He really hoped she hadn’t brought him underwear. He did not want to put on Bill’s boxers.

It didn’t take all that long for him to get ready for bed, but he felt lethargic and sick. He shuffled out and Scully led him to her bed, sat him down, and told him to go to sleep.

“In your bed?” he said. “Scully I can’t sleep in your bed. Where will you sleep?”

“I’ll sleep in my chair,” she said. All the makeup was gone from her face and her skin looked a little pink where she had scrubbed it so hard. But her hair was still holding its curl. Mulder reached out to touch it.

“I’d kiss you if I hadn’t just thrown up,” he told her quietly, “because that’s gross.”

Scully stared at him for a moment, her eyes wide, then nodded. “It is gross,” she agreed. She leaned forward and kissed his forehead. “Go to sleep.”

* * *

 

Scully brushed her teeth and tried not to think about what Mulder’s words implied. He wanted to kiss her. Oh god. Kissing Mulder. Maybe she should have let him, throw up or no.

No, no, Dana, that’s disgusting. Besides. Why would you want to kiss Mulder? Hm? Nobody at school likes him. He believes in _aliens,_ of all things. Hell, you saw him peeing on a fence earlier tonight! Why for the love of all that is holy would you want to kiss Spooky Fox Mulder?

Scully sighed. She finished with her nightly routine and curled up on her reading chair with her extra blanket. Mulder had already fallen asleep against her pillows. She ought to bring him more water.

She refilled his cup in the bathroom sink and left it on her bedside table. Then she checked the blankets, and turned him on his side, in case he was sick in his sleep. In fact, maybe she should move the garbage can to the bed.

Scully rearranged her room to accommodate her sick friend and found herself standing over him, her hand running through his hair, her thumb brushing lightly over his cheekbone. He did not stir. He looked so lovely like this, asleep, safe, in her bed…

Scully jumped back. Her thoughts were drifting dangerously close to sex and she was _not_ ready to think about that, hell no. She hardly knew how sex worked outside of the biology. And Mulder probably didn’t either. So. This was a bad idea. Not to mention what would her parents say, what would happen to her chances for valedictorian.

She returned to her cocoon on the chair and clicked off the lamp. It was a long time before she fell asleep.

* * *

 

Scully was startled awake by someone pounding on her door. She glanced at the clock—ten AM—and hurried to her feet. Why had she locked her door? Who needed her at this hour? What the—

She opened the door and there was her sister, Melissa, arms folded, looking livid.

“Why’d you lock me out of the bathroom, Dana?” she snapped. She pushed her way into the room. “Don’t think I don’t know where you were last night. You’re lucky Mom and Dad went to the Saturday market because I’d be telling—.” She broke off with a gasp.

Scully looked around and her eyes fell on Mulder, dead asleep in her bed. Her insides froze.

“Holy shit, Dana,” Melissa whispered. “Isn’t that that Mulder kid?” Her eyes went wide. “You _slept with—._ ”

“I didn’t!” Scully interrupted. “He drank too much last night and I had to take care of him. I swear. I slept in the chair.” She pointed to it. “That’s why I locked you out. I didn’t want you to come barging in.” Her eyes narrowed. “Like you just did.”

Scully could practically see the wheels turning in her sister’s mind, and with a sigh she realized she was about to owe her for the rest of her financially-dependent life. “So there is nothing going on between you two,” Melissa said finally.

“No.”

Melissa nodded. “Uh huh. Okay. I guess I can keep this one to myself.”

Scully was infinitely relieved. “Thank you, Missy, I—.”

“But I’m going to need a favor from you.”

Her shoulders sagged. “What is it?”

“I’ll tell you when it comes up.” Melissa winked and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

“Are you in trouble?”

Scully looked over to see Mulder with his eyes barely open. She walked over to him and knelt down. “Not in as much as I thought I would be.” Her hand found its way into his hair again. He closed his eyes under her touch. “How are you feeling?”

“Like an ass,” he mumbled. “I guess I’m not as hungover as I thought I’d be.”

“That’s because you puked.”

“Oh yeah.” He sighed. “That was fun.” He opened his eyes. “You look nice,” he told her.

Scully snorted. “Maybe you’re still drunk.”

“I’m not,” he said. His sleep-warm arm beckoned her. “C’mere, lie down with me.”

“You’re definitely still drunk,” she said, because it was safer than answering. Mulder retracted his hand and looked at her. Scully pursed her lips. “Do you remember everything last night?”

Scully could see his brain working behind his eyes. Slowly, he sat up, grabbed the cup of water Scully had set there the night before, and took a long drink. She watched and waited. He placed it back down and braced his hands on his knees. “Scully I… it would be very easy to pretend I didn’t, but I do.”

Scully’s breath hitched. Her heart started to pound. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to happen but she had the undeniable feeling that something was going to.

Mulder ran a hand through his already-mussed hair. “Look, no matter what I said last night, I don’t want it to come between us. I know I told you I’m in love with you but I—.”

“You didn’t say that,” Scully said. Her heart had stopped.

He blinked several times, his face blank. “I didn’t?”

“No.”

Mulder’s mouth slowly fell open and his gaze shifted to the wall. Scully swore she saw a blush creeping up his neck. “Uh um…” was all he said.

Scully sat down on the bed beside him. “Mulder?”

He refused to look at her. “Please don’t be angry.” 

“I’m not—Mulder, oh, no, come here.” She grabbed the sides of his head and pulled him down to her level. She hesitated, only for a moment, and then she kissed him.

His lips were warm and soft. She thought vaguely of the other men she had kissed—an eighth grade boyfriend, her sister’s friend Steve—and how this felt different. They had all been forceful and with too much tongue. But Mulder was shocked still. She held her mouth to his for a long while, and then pulled away, eyes wide.

Mulder blinked, then cupped her face with his large hands, his thumbs stroking her cheekbones, and kissed her.

This was the kind of kissing the romance novels talked about. His mouth open against hers and his tongue lapping its way inside. When he pulled back, he held her bottom lip in his mouth a second longer, and then let go.

Scully looked at him, feeling extremely flushed. “Oh,” she said. “That was… new.”

“Did you like it?” he asked.

“Do it again?”

So he kissed her again, a little harder, a little more tongue, and Scully felt herself melting. He finished with several smaller kisses, and then nipped at her bottom lip just barely. “Yeah?” he asked, uncertain.

“Yeah,” Scully mumbled. “Where did that come from?”

“I watch a lot of porn.”

“I knew that.”

“It’s educational.”

“Hmm,” Scully said. “I’m undereducated and need a tutor.” She pulled him back to her mouth.

Mulder said, “Wait, wait, so you like me too, right?”

“Use that big brain of yours, Mulder.” And she kissed him before he could get another word out.


End file.
